New research conducted by SwRI, Aix-Marseille University and the Institute for Advanced Studies demonstrated how complex organic molecules (COMs) could have formed in the protoplanetary disk represented here. Interstellar ultraviolet particles (orange arrows) irradiate the disk of materials, providing a range of conditions that could trigger the organic chemistry essential to COM creation as the icy grains migrate radially and vertically in the disk. A similar transport and irradiation process